


just know i know

by myssyx



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Getting Together, M/M, like tooth-rotting fluff, so soo SOFT, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:42:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25367044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myssyx/pseuds/myssyx
Summary: Lance does not have a dilemma.Hunk and Pidge disagree.Or: Lance is in love with Keith, and wants to let him know. Ridiculously soft fluff ensues.
Relationships: Hunk & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 123





	just know i know

**Author's Note:**

> i haven’t posted anything here before, but i was overcome with Soft Feelings for kl and Had to write this. hope you enjoy this soft garbage!! (seriously, it’s superbly cliché and filled with love and that’s the way i love it)
> 
> title from one of my favourite songs ever, sink in — amy shark

Lance does not have a dilemma, despite what Hunk and Pidge think. They’re in one of the cosy study rooms, tucked away amongst the well-skimmed bookshelves of the university’s library, the one that doesn’t have the strange hot microwaved food smell that visits the rooms near lunchtime.

“You definitely do,” Pidge remarks, pushing her way-too-large- _“i’m-getting-a-new-pair-soon-hunk!”_ -glasses back up her nose to rest on the perpetual notepad indents, and Lance shrugs —

because he really doesn’t.

Hunk has taken to pacing around the table, although minutes ago, he’d been the one telling Lance to stop moving around so much.

Hunk fixes his concerned and anxious motherly gaze on him.

“Lance, the only times I’ve seen you be this calm is when you’ve accepted defeat or are planning something that is probably, no, certainly going to go sideways. And I don’t want my best friend to feel defeated at all nor do I have the hospital or bail funds. Please think about it.”

Honestly, with the way Hunk was talking about it, you’d think Lance was planning to slide down the frozen dairy aisle in Publix with nothing but sheer determination and the abandoned milk crates beside their uni dorms — and Lance has done that, thank you very much, and only gotten out of it with the most minor scratch ever.

“You had to get stitches for that, Lance.”

See? Tis’ but a scratch.

“I think I’ll come out of this just fine. More than fine, really, if I’m being honest,” Lance declares, and swivels around to meet the deadpan exasperation chiselled on Pidge and Concerned Face 2.0 from Hunk.

“But what if it goes badly? What if he gets scared or faints out of pure shock? Actually no, Keith would probably punch you out of panic because of his fucked up flight or fight responses and then you’d have to go to hospital for it and oh my god this is going to be another Publix Incident.”

Hunk finishes off by glancing at Pidge for backup.

Pidge hums thoughtfully, and then clears her throat, a sure sign of her about to disclose her findings from this nonexistent crisis that Lance is going through.

The only dilemma in the room seems to be self-imposed from his best friends, and although they may be intellectual geniuses, they seem to be coming up short with how Lance is literally just going over to Keith’s apartment later to ask him out.

It’s really that simple, but that might be the reason why they’re short circuiting right now.

“Okay, I don’t think Keith will punch you, but he’s definitely going to be shocked. Or confused. He has no concept of romance, remember Elijah last year? Poor guy straight up bought him a bouquet of roses and confessed to him, and then Keith just awkwardly replied that he ‘didn’t like roses, but thanks anyway’” Pidge recounts with a clinical yet sympathetic tone, complete with air quotes.

Hunk winces.

Lance remembers that particular day with ease because he'd been the one to carefully explain to Keith that he’d rejected the guy, and watched as Keith had gone ramrod stiff, a flushed pink stealing up his neck and face as he sheepishly realised his mistake.

It was the first time he’d seen the guy this red without anger, and Lance most clearly recalls how cute it was for a guy who constantly had a hidden knife strapped to his shoes and rode a chrome red motorcycle around campus to get flustered over something almost benign.

“Guys, I’ll be fine.”

Pidge and Hunk look at each other again, and Lance sighs, though not irritatedly, because he knows they’re concerned about his wellbeing. They’ve been there for his breakups, especially with the fallout after Nyma back in highschool.

But Keith is different. He’s more important, because unlike Nyma, he isn’t one to break up over text, and also, he’s one of the most precious people in his life. If it really does go south, the rift it would create would be unimaginably bleak.

“For real,” he added, as if that assuaged all the worry that they had accumulated.

“... okay. We’re going to trust you on this, but if you need us, we can set up an Avatar marathon stat and break out the caramel swirl ice cream. The fancy one,” Hunk promises, and Pidge nods fervently.

Lance beams.

“Thanks guys. It means a lot. I gotta put this plan into action now though — and yes, Hunk, I will text you guys all the details, don’t worry.”

They wish him good luck and Lance leaves, almost skipping down the library’s concrete stairs, down to the bus stop to catch a bus right to his destination: Keith’s apartment.

The sun is bright overhead, like it’s smiling fortune down on him, small clouds lingering lazily across a canvas of wonderful sky blue.

It’s going to go good. Lance can feel it.

* * *

When Lance pulls up to the familiar graffitied benches and scratched plastic panels of Keith’s apartment complex’s bus stop, he steps off, wishes the bus driver a good day, and takes a deep breath.

Lance had texted Keith earlier that afternoon if he could come over, but had gotten no reply, which didn’t scare Lance.

If Keith didn’t want him over, he would have plainly said so; he’d even pressed a copy of his key insistently into Lance’s hand three months ago to make sure Lance understood how much he mattered to Keith — it was now permanently apart of Lance’s sea-glass keychain, which held the welcomings to all his homes:

— the chipped and handed-down-from-other-students teal key to Hunk, Pidge, and his dorm, a shiny steel one to his older brother Marco’s charming new house, the rusty but reliable key to the backdoor of the elderly home he volunteered at, and of course, the key to his family’s well-loved and well-lived brick house.

And Lance didn’t have any fear in his heart then, so he doesn’t now.

He slots in the key, turns the handle, and steps into the apartment.

Silence, but the friendly kind, greets him, as well as the resident scent of eucalyptus from the incense sticks sitting on the living table.

“Keith?”

No answer, so Lance deducts he’s probably in his room, taking off his sneakers to approach Keith’s bedroom.

He turns the knob and finds gentle sunlight pilfering the room’s dimness, the chair with the patched up armrests rolled neatly into the desk, a half finished model plane and its mess crowding the small space next to the bed.

Posters illustrating mechanic diagrams, and pilots adorned with winning smiles plaster the walls with bumps of blu tac.

And then Keith.

Keith, sleeping peacefully in his bed, sheets tucked up to his chin to keep him warm. Keith, painted gently in slants of warm sun, hair caught alight in a wondrous dark mess on his pillow, chest moving up and down slowly, like the tides bringing back a lover.

Keith, illuminated.

_Keith._

Lance smiles kindly to match Keith’s good, simple, mildness. He approaches the bedside — slow as to not wake him yet, and revels in the steady comfort of being able to appreciate his best friend quietly.

Lance’s hand finds a home in Keith’s inky hair, and threads itself through the unkempt but magically soft forest of hair.

Keith stirs, and blinks sleepily from the gentle sensation.

“Lance?...” he mumbles, and it’s like a flower blossoming towards sunlight with how Lance ducks down a bit, leaning more into Keith’s close proximity. “Yeah,” he answers, and it’s so full of love he wonders if Keith has figured it out. He probably has.

Lance continues carding his hand through Keith’s locks, and Keith pushes his head back into Lance’s palm with a pleased hum.

Keith half sits up, and the blankets move down a couple inches, and Lance realises he’s wearing the well-washed navy hoodie that he left back here half a year ago. It’s oversized on Lance’s broad shoulders, and draped on Keith, it engulfs him, making him a pile of sleepy, adorable, best friend.

He looks so beautiful, and for a moment, Lance is struck with an all encompassing bout of affectionate, bubbly, love, a stronger one than normal, seeing this Keith reach up to rub his eyes slightly, adjusting to the afternoon light.

Another sleepy blinks up at Lance later, and Keith seems to be just hovering above barely awake, but his eyes are closed. His eyelashes curl up gently.

“Hey, Keith?” whisper-asks Lance, and in return, Keith whisper-replies back “Hm?”, eyelids still shut.

“I like you. A lot. I think I love you,” Lance speaks, syrupy slow, lips brushing the crown of Keith’s head with every meaningful word, because, baby, there’s no need to rush. Not when Keith smiles back so nicely, pink lips reaching up in tandem slowness.

He opens his eyes, and his dark eyes seem to be slightly darker, or maybe it’s the knowing happiness in them. Keith reaches up with his arms and wraps his arms around Lance’s shoulders and nape, immediately starting to play with the curls.

Lance feels more than sees as Keith tucks his face neatly into the curve of his collarbone, lips pressed sweetly near the hollow of his throat.

They both inhale, and Lance makes an effort to wrap his arms around Keith’s back, just to hold him as well.

Everything is golden, and for something so tender, it isn’t tame, not in the way their love seems to emanate and seek each other now. No, that’s not tame at all.

“I love you too,” spoken so surely into Lance’s ear.

Lance reaches down to cradle Keith’s warm cheek, and both flutter their eyes close as Lance leans down, and kisses him.

Keith sighs perfectly into Lance’s mouth, and they both undoubtedly feel it as Lance starts smiling so wide it’s barely a kiss.

It doesn’t matter if they mess up how they kiss, but it’s not really messing up when they laugh a bit too much to actually keep kissing.

Not messing up at all.

They manoeuvre themselves to both be under the warmed blankets, and somehow manage to melt into the other more, Keith’s arms still wrapped comfortably around his neck and Lance looped, unbroken around Keith’s waist.

Lance presses a last, lingering kiss on Keith’s forehead, just because he’s been wanting to for months, and Keith burrows further into his embrace.

They both fall asleep peacefully and utterly content.

* * *

Of course, that means that Lance doesn’t get to answer the incessant texts and calls from his other best friends, but that’s not too much of a matter when they wake to Hunk and Pidge standing smugly in the doorway, having come over and broken in themselves because Pidge forgot her key and Hunk is getting his recut, clearly happy with the outcome of the not-a-dilemma.

Keith says his hellos extremely sleepily and both are delighted by this rarely soft Keith, but not around Lance. Then it’s not rare, but it’s still special.

Stumbling from the bedroom to the living room hand in hand, Pidge is setting up Netflix and a delicious aroma of curry wafts over from the tiny kitchen as they wait patiently on the worn couch.

Hunk brings out four impeccably balanced plates of spicy, warming, curry and smiles pointedly at the two leaning against one another.

“Congratulations. We can have caramel swirl ice cream to celebrate,” Hunk announces, and all of them cheer.

As they settle in, sandwiched comfortably on the couch as the famous intro music starts to play, with their hot curry and warm hearts, Keith turns to peck Lance on the cheek. Hunk coos affectionately and Pidge pretends to gag. Lance smiles and holds Keith’s hand tighter.

Everything is lovely.

The not-a-dilemma?

Definitely solved.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!


End file.
